Library of America editor in chief Geoffrey O’Brien mines a trove of historical records and documents to illustrate the real-life events surrounding the 1873 murder of Mansfield Walworth in The Fall of the House of Walworth: A Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America (Henry Holt, 337 pgs). During the summer of 1873, Mansfield was shot by his 18-year old son, Frank, in a hotel room in New York city. Frank immediately surrendered to police and a murder trial followed amid a flurry of media attention. The burning interest of the press was stoked by the prominence of the Walworth family in the city of Saratoga Springs, NY. Mansfield’s father, Judge Walworth, had built his fortune and cemented the family’s elite status in the courtroom, but Mansfield’s erratic and violent behavior towards his wife and children, and the homicidal actions of his son tarnished the family name. Mansfield had long abused his wife, Ellen, and even after they divorced, wrote her letters threatening physical harm and even death. O’Brien argues that Frank killed his father in order to protect his mother from further harm.
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Young boy near Cincinnati, Ohio. John Vachon (1942 or 1943).
In the years following “The Greatest Generation”, the events of the Great Depression and World War II were often imagined in a series of snapshots and newsreels. The muted shades of gray or sepia dividing the facts of history from the full color present. In January 2008, the Library of Congress began a pilot program using Flickr to share thousands of color photos taken in the 1930′s and 1940′s, to bring the immediacy and vibrancy of America’s past into a modern day social network. According to the Library of Congress website, “1,600 color images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, 1,500+ images from the George Grantham Bain News Service, selected panoramic photographs, portraits of jazz musicians and personalities by William P. Gottlieb from the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room, and other photos from the Library of Congress collections” are currently available for viewing on Flickr. Possessing a Flickr account is not necessary for viewing these photos, but is required for commenting and/or tagging images. The goal of sharing these invaluable photos is to “increase awareness of these collections with the general public” and invite people to share any pertinent historical or biographical information they might have regarding the images. Read more…
By Anne Fortier
Ballantine Books | 464 pages
Release Date: August 24, 2010
Summary:
The heartbreak that Julie Jacobs feels over the loss of her cherished aunt Rose soon turns to puzzled dismay as she learns the entire estate has been left to Julie’s twin sister, while she herself has only been bequeathed a single key. The mystery and adventure of Anne Fortier’s Juliet, begins with this small key, once owned by Julie’s dead mother, that fits a safety-deposit box in the city of Siena, Italy. The Twenty-five-year-old American travels to Siena and unlocks not only the box, but dangerous secrets about her Italian ancestors. She discovers a familial link to Giulietta Tolomei, a girl who fell in love with a young man from a rival family named Romeo in 1340, all to disastrous effect. This tragic love story went on to be immortalized through the ages by artists and writers, most famously by Shakespeare himself. The letters that Julie finds in the safety-deposit box point to the long hidden treasure of “Juliet’s Eyes,” beautiful jewels that adorn a gold statue. In her quest to find the valuable artifact, she encounters a mysterious contessa as well as intimidating mobsters, and realizes the blood feud that started between ancient families still exists in modern Siena. Alternating between the 21st and 14th centuries, Fortier weaves a story of intrigue and romance centered around one of the world’s most famous couples.
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Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel, Freedom hits shelves tomorrow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 576pgs), though the media has been furiously buzzing about the title for weeks. The New York Times has published two rave reviews about the tale of a dysfunctional family; Sam Tanenhaus proclaims the books “a masterpiece of American fiction”, while Michiko Kakutani applauds Franzen’s “ability to throw open a big, Updikean picture window on American middle-class life.” Earlier this month, the author was featured on the cover of Time magazine as a “Great American Novelist”, and President Barack Obama got an early copy of the book to take on a recent vacation. Yet, with all this love, there are some, like authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, who feel the “Franzenfrenzy” coverage, especially in the New York Times, is overblown and biased. They also feel that the media would do better by focusing on the works of a wide range of authors, with varied backgrounds, instead of one literary star. The pair have turned to Twitter to voice their opinions on the subject using the hashtag #franzenfreude. “Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t white male literary darlings,” tweeted Picoult. Weiner asked her Twitter followers to suggest “non-Franzen novels about love, identity, families”, such as her pick, Digging to America by Anne Tyler. Read more…
Scott Simon writes openly and lovingly about the adoption process that he and his wife went through in order to bring their two daughters home from China in Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other: In Praise of Adoption (Random House, 180pgs). The author, known on the airwaves as the host of NPR‘s Weekend Edition, and his wife Caroline, had tried for years to conceive before deciding to adopt a child from overseas. Simon tells of their first “adopto-tourism” trip to China, anxiously seeing the sights with a group of adoptive parents, nervously waiting for the big moment when they’ll finally meet their child. The fulfillment of a dream, becoming parents, is both joyful and terrifying. At first sight, they immediately fall in love with the little girl they name Elise, though the euphoria is tempered with moments of panic and fear. “What have we done? What were we thinking? We’ve ripped a baby away from the only place she’s ever known, to bring her some place on the other side of the world that might as well be the moon. What kind of people are we?”
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By Kathy Reichs
Scribner | 320pgs
Release Date: August 24, 2010
Summary:
An unusual death in Quebec drives Dr. Temperance Brennan to dig forty years into the past for answers in Spider Bones, Kathy Reichs’ 13th outing with the forensic anthropologist. Fingerprints identify the victim of drowning, with strange S&M overtones, as John Lowery. But, records show that John Lowery died in Vietnam in 1968, and was buried by his family in North Carolina. How could one man die twice? Brennan exhumes Lowery’s grave and takes the remains to the U.S. military’s Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, in Hawaii to find answers. Things are further complicated when yet another set of remains is discovered, this one entangled with Lowery’s dog tags, and Brennan is also asked to consult on the body of a possible shark attack victim. The good Doctor teams up with Detective Andrew Ryan, her on-again off-again lover, and Honolulu medical examiner Hadley Perry to unravel the twisted mysteries behind all these deaths. Read more…
First edition cover, 1941
In a column posted on the American Libraries Magazine website earlier this month, Jennifer Burek Pierce argues that children’s books, like the ever popular Curious George series, should garner more literary merit. “To represent the world for children involves skillful choices based on training, research, and lived experience.” Often times the simple words and captivating imagery of a 32-page picture book impart important life lessons or cultural themes. Such is the case with Curious George, the creation of husband and wife Margret and H. A. Rey. As German Jews, the couple was forced to flee France in 1940 as the Nazi army rolled toward Paris. They escaped on bicycles, and carried among their few belongings several manuscripts of children’s books, one of which featured a mischievous monkey named Fifi. Read more…
By Abigail Pogrebin
Doubleday ©2009 | Hardcover 288pgs
Journalist and identical twin Abigail Pogrebin offers a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between twins and how it impacts the need for individuality in One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I’ve Learned About Everyone’s Struggle to Be Singular. Twins, especially identical twins, are often seen as special, at times almost a novelty, in our society. The duo is bestowed with a unique “star power” that draws levels of attention few singletons experience. Such was especially true for Abigail and sister Robin who grew up loving to sing and perform, excelling academically (both graduating from Yale), and achieving successful careers in journalism.
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By Julia Stuart
Doubleday | 320pgs
Relase Date: August 10, 2010
Summary:
Julia Stuart creates a whimsical and amusing menagerie of humans and animals alike, in The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise: A Novel. Modern day Beefeater Balthazar Jones and his wife Hebe live in the Tower of London, along with an unusual assortment of staff members that man the historical monument. Dealing all day with tourists, both curious and cranky, distracts him from greiving the loss of his 11-year-old son, Milo. The boy’s death lies heavily on the couple, and Hebe is desperate to talk about their loss and share her grief. But, Balthazar attempts to further avoid the subject by becoming engrossed in the odd hobby of collecting rainwater in Egyptian perfume bottles. When the Beefeater is unexpectedly assigned the job of creating a menagerie to house all the exotic animals gifted to the Queen, the population of the Tower grows even more strange and colorful. The folly and foibles of two-legged and four-legged creatures combine to tell an endearing love story.
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Author Naomi Hirahara based her crime-solving protagonist, Mas Arai, on an unassuming role model: her father, who started a landscaping and gardening business in the L.A. area after World War II. With no police or military background, a 72-year-old Japanese American gardener may seem an odd choice for an amateur detective, but from the start, the series has won acclaim from both readers and critics. “I’m basically making a character like my father a hero,” says Hirahara in an interview with NPR. “I think all the times I complained that my dad was a gardener and we couldn’t afford this trip or that trip, I’m trying to make up for it by creating this heroic, iconic figure that’s underestimated.” Read more…
